2B Friday10-14

You decide to take a steady approach, not wanting to stress-test your car immediately after it failed on you last race.

You start out conservatively with a set of the medium rubber and do a few installation laps. You head back in and give the all clear to your mechanics. They’ve done an excellent job rebuilding your car. You head back out, ready to do some long stints.

You feel the fresh [Renault] engine in the back performing great, but you don’t want to jinx it. Lap by lap, you are steadily improving while you gain confidence in both the car and its engine. Your engineer on the radio asks you if everything feels alright, and you respond positively.

Just before the session ends, you go out one last time on a new set of soft tires. You turn up the engine mode somewhat ready to record your final laptime of the session.

Your time is good for a sixth place in the ranking, just one below your teammate.

–

After the session has ended, you head back in to the pits. Time for lunch! You wonder whether the caterer has prepared anything other than the usual low-carb drivel, but you quickly find out that it is not the case, again. Begrudgingly, you scoop the salad onto your plate, and take a seat on one of the benches.

“Good job mate,” you hear a familiar voice say behind you.

You turn around. It’s Daniels’. You feel his words mocking you while he dons his annoying ear-to-ear smile.

“Thanks,” you say, “you weren’t bad either.” Deep down you that you could’ve easily beaten him had you taken a more reckless approach. If you had actually tried, you had beaten him by a mile.

Silently, you finish your salad and prepare to head back into the garage.

Your engineer approaches and asks you what program you want to do for this second session.